Square-Enix Is Losing Touch With Their Roots

Hardcore Gamer: If Square-Enix wants to find the real root of the problem, they should open their eyes and look at how they have presented their content in the last nine years and how they’ve shafted some of masterminds behind their core franchises while flimsily handing those titles off to directors who didn’t know how to construct them with the same flair.

They were merely losing it when Sakaguchi was still there. With projects like Cerberus and the FF4 sequel. FF12 was about a dispute between kingdoms. You traveled about 10% of Europe. The "world" was never in danger. That's when they lost it.

I'm not sure I understand your comment. I haven't seen any evidence of Squaresoft losing touch with their roots while under the leadership of Sakaguchi. The examples you cited where post Squaresoft's merger with Enix—by then Sakaguchi had left.

People need to understand Squaresoft no longer exists. Square-Enix was founded in 2003, and is a completely different company in terms of ethics, goals, and quality. In reference to the article's title: Square-Enix has not deviated from it's 2003 roots since it's inception—that's the problem.

Sakagushi formed Mistwalker at the beginning of this gen dude. He was still part of Square when FF12 came out, in fact, he was the producer. Square absorbed Enix, not the way around; ethics, goals, and quality were still the same.

The problem is that Square lost all their talent. Just like Capcom lost Kamiya, Inafune and Mikami; Square lost Sakagushi, Takahashi and Uematsu, and now the only one left is Nomura and no one else but he has so much work making art for 80% of the project they make that he has no time for his own projects. Square still has the budget but not the people to make it work, especially with Toriyama around sticking his nose on everything just to make it fail like he did with Final Fantasy 13 and Parasite Eve 3rd Birthday.

Actually Sakaguchi almost made Squaresoft shutdown. He is the one that decided it was better to make Final Fantasy Spirits Within more westernize. That movie made them lose a lot of money and that is mostly why they merged with enix. since it was such a failure Sakaguchi was considered responsible and lowered his position to very low. He eventually quit and made his own company.

Sakaguchi was an executive producer of Final Fantasy 12 from 2001-2003—the first years of production before his departure. Final Fantasy 12 wouldn't release in Japan for a further three years. As far as I am aware, Sakaguchi isn't even credited as a producer of Final Fantasy 12—he's given special thanks and nothing more.

Squaresoft did not absorb Enix. Squaresoft was suffering financially due to the failed film Spirit's Within and rising development costs. Enix was also suffering financially at the time—this led to the merger of the two companies. You can not honestly look at the evidence and say the ethics, quality, and goals of Square-Enix match those of Squaresoft pre-Enix merger.

@Godmars Sakaguchi is a human being and is prone to mistakes just as the rest of us. He tried something, it failed, and he stepped down shortly after. You can't condemn the man for a single mistake and label the mistake as the evidence Squaresoft was starting down a dark path and it was Sakaguchi's fault Square-Enix is what it is today.